Monday, 25 March 2013

Lighter, Faster, Stronger

"You don't understand the power of the dark side." D. Vader.

Apparently all good essays start with a quote. I don't know where I got that from - note the use of the word 'apparently' which in modern parlance is used to justify any old guff. Darth was a tortured soul and I'm beginning to understand how he felt; I doubt I'll progress to planetary destruction any time soon but I remain certain that one day I'll master the Force - certainly anyone who has witnessed my mystical hand gesture as I 'open' the automatic doors at the supermarket will testify to the fact. I could've done with a bit of time travel this week as a weekend on-call has played havoc with my training plan. I've just completed a 56 hour shift - yes people, some of us still do those! It didn't leave much space for my planned 30 minute session so I've had to bump that by a day, which then puts next week into disarray. Fortunately my workouts are still relatively light so recovery is not a massive issue; I can see this becoming a problem however when I'm expected to be running 5 miles several times a week.

The sessions (still mostly walking but with a bit of running increasingly thrown in) are still getting easier and the pain in my right knee appears to have gone. This can only be good. Also, I appear to be starting to shed some weight. I've been training for about 3 weeks now and I reckon I've lost about 2kg. Not much in the grand scheme of things but if it carries on I'm golden. Unfortunately it appears that the lighter you are the fewer calories you burn when exercising. They don't tell you that on the government healthy lifestyle information ads do they? Still - swings and roundabouts.

The week has mostly been dominated by a frankly abject performance by England in the cricket. To be fair - well played New Zealand, who have managed to make a flat track look flat when batting and anything but when bowling. The much vaunted England attack have some questions to answer and the batsmen need their heads knocking together! I still reckon we should call up Geoffrey's grandmother - she must be some player.

Next weeks plan seems to involve a bit more running. Hopefully the ankle pain will improve as they strengthen - I'm hoping the shin pain will stay away (I'm not allowed to call it shin splints apparently - that just leads to ridicule). If the weather improves I may even get out on the road. I was reminded by my daughter yesterday that this time last year we had a barbecue and ate outside. Not likely today! Although to all of those who have taken the piss out of the fact my barbecue is chained to the wall, it has made a run for it this week so that chain has turned out to be very wise.

I've been trying to think of ways to make this blog of more general use to its readers (zero I reckon although Google seem to think someone in America has viewed it this week) so here it is: in the new Tomb Raider game, max out the bow and stick with it; the other weapons pale by comparison, particularly once you have the Napalm upgrade.

So there you have it for another week:
3.6 miles covered.
131kg but still fat (surely some of it has turned to muscle??).
Musical highlight : Don't Let Me Down (Gently) by The Wonderstuff - thanks Miles.
Treadmill living up to its promise to carry fat lads.

About Me

I am a somewhat overweight, unfit 40-year-old chap who remembers the time when he could run a half-marathon (quite a few years ago) and has foolishly agreed to run the 2014 Great North Run for Yorkshire Cancer Research. In order to this I reckon I need to shed about 40 kilos. Oh.. and become able to run more than a kilometre without getting chest pain! Please visit www.justgiving.com/fatrich to donate.